The scam e-mail tells recipients they have won money and that the FBI is trying to verify the recipientís identity. It includes a picture of a U.S. citizenís passport and a fake FBI agentís name.

Courtesy of FBI

HONOLULU ó The Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning Hawaii residents that scam e-mails purportedly from the FBI are flooding into the state from Nigeria.

FBI Special Agent Tom Simon says the bureau has received dozens of complaints about the e-mails in recent months. He says that probably means hundreds or thousands of other e-mail users have also received the fake messages.The scam e-mails tell recipients they have won money and that the FBI is trying to verify the recipientís identity. It includes a picture of a U.S. citizenís passport and a fake FBI agentís name.Special Agent-in-Charge Charlene Thornton of the FBIís Honolulu office says the e-mails are probably an ďadvance fee schemeĒ in which recipients are asked to send money to later get a larger sum.